Skies of Blue, Clouds of White
by thewhiterose3
Summary: He fills up every room, leaving little pieces of himself, blazing with light.


Title: Skies of Blue, Clouds of White

Author: thewhiterose3

Pairing: Danny/Steve, slash

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. Blah blah woof woof.

Rating: T

A/N: Yet another flufftastic addition to the "God Forbid, Feelings" universe. I mean really, there should be a warning for how much fluff is in my heart (and this fic) for these two boys. I just can't help it. This series is totally how I see the boys, moments of angst and fluff and just love underneath it all. Anyway, uh, thanks for reading, continuing to read my epic fluff-fest. Leave me a comment, if you would, I'd really appreciate it.

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><p>When Danny finally, finally gives up his shitty apartment and moves in for real, it makes Steve's breath catch. Because the only way Steve can describe it is that someone just turned the electricity on and now there are lights and sounds where before there was only echo and shadow. Before that night, Steve had been walking around in the dark, sometimes with a flashlight, moving around mostly by feel, ignoring the corners that the dark hid, the memories that he simply could not face, could not brighten even temporarily. Then after that night, after Danny became an even more permanent fixture in his house, his life, his bed, Danny was his generator, filling up whole rooms with light and sound and life but taking it with him when he left, leaving Steve in the dark. But now, now all the old dingy bulbs have been changed and the stereo has been left on playing Louie Armstrong records.<p>

And sometimes Steve wonders where the shadows and echoes of memory fled because everywhere Steve looks, he only finds Danny. He fills up every room, leaving little pieces of himself, blazing with light. Sometimes it's a trinket, the snowglobe his eldest sister brought him from Rome in the guest room accompanying Steve's sports trophies, games he never knew his father attended. Endless photographs of Grace join those of Steve and Mary's childhood before it broke, the whole Williams clan balancing the elder McGarrett's tribute to his wife on the mantle. Danny doesn't own much after his trek across the Pacific, but the things that made the cut are those he cherishes. One of those digital picture frames scrolling through nieces and nephews and childhood homes, little league games frozen mid-swing, all that potential captured and sent across the airwaves.

Other than the bedroom, obviously, the room that is the most changed by Danny's unique and boundless energy (and Steve has idle thoughts of bottling it up and keeping it for cold stormy days when the power goes and Steve is left in the dark again, but then he hears Danny in his mind, feels the mental head-slap, repeating that he isn't fucking going anywhere, get it through your damn head already) is the kitchen. Steve has always viewed cooking like the chemistry nerd that he not so secretly is. You put ingredient A and ingredient B together and you get reaction C. Your body needs specific nutrients and you provide it with those nutrients in the most efficient way possible. He tried to explain it to Danny once and he was graced with the face and the tone and the rant that very clearly iterated that Danny knew, has always known, that Steve was a robot, wires and computer chips and synthesization in place of flesh and blood, and this, this right here just proves it. Steve kissed him mid-rant, stemming the flow of words with proof of life until Danny admitted that yes, maybe his programmers had done a pretty good job with some of the human qualities.

But Steve had never really understood Danny's point until he'd seen it, seen Danny in their kitchen in all of his bright, burning glory. Because Danny is constant energy moving from this cutting board to that frying pan, adding spices at a whim. There is not a recipe in sight as Danny smiles and hums and looks completely at peace. He has his mother on speakerphone asking if great Aunt Nancy's pie crust needs any alterations to stay together if the chicken pot pie in question includes more fruit than vegetables. His mother sounds affronted and Danny jumps at the chance to commiserate before saying, in a tone that Steve had previously only associated with Grace, that he's trying to do something special for Steve.

And the way his Mom just audibly melts, suggests using a mango sauce in lieu of the traditional gravy, and Steve knows that he's somehow won over Mrs. Williams without even meeting her. That implication, that Danny's mother knew that this was coming before Steve did, that Danny spent nights in his vacant apartment rambling to his family while they indulgently smiled and exchanged knowning glances in Jersey, just fills even his darkest places inside. And Steve knows, knows that the shadows and echoes had fled to the broken, jagged places inside him and those, even those don't stand a chance against the vibrant ball of energy that is Danny Williams. And of course its now when Danny notices him standing in the hall, when Steve can't stop the huge goofy grin on his face.

And when Danny blushes, tries to end the call quickly, Steve just has to stop him, asking Mrs. Williams to give them just a minute as he kisses his partner soundly. The indulgent "of course, dearest. But I told you Steven, call me Maggie" is almost lost on him as he pulls back, rests his forehead against Danny's and tries to say thank you with his eyes, his touch. Danny pulls back fully, grinning, shoos Steve toward the phone while he mumbles about love-sick fools and burning chicken. Steve leaves it on speaker, can't stop himself from gushing about his and Gracie's plans to build a nautical themed club house, is endlessly warmed when Maggie asks about Kono and Chin, when she good naturedly nags about when their schedule will allow the clan to descend on Hawaii so she can officially meet the family. After Steve promises to talk to the governor about simultaneous vacation time, she starts in on stories of the cousins and uncles and the clan and Steve can just picture her hands punctuating. He can feel the light radiating from so many miles away, bright and vibrant and cleansing.

He looks up at Danny, so filled up with light inside that its probably oozing out of him as well, to find his partner elbow deep in flour, kneading. A smile gracing his face that is all indulgent, amused adoration for this, his family. His loud, large, bright family and Steve, Steve is a part of that now. And Steve can't help picturing it, all of the Williamses in his backyard, all that light, that love concentrated, bright and burning and loud, laughter echoing and crescendoing. Filling this previously empty house, finding all of the last tiny cracks the shadows found to hide. And really, even as epically sharp and broken as the shards inside him are, even the darkest voices inside Steve know, they don't stand the slightest chance.


End file.
